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Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren has slammed suggestions that his performances were at the heart of the club’s shortcomings last season, after becoming something of a scapegoat for our underwhelming campaign.

The Reds spent big on the Croatian last summer, bringing in him from Southampton to compete with Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho.

However, his performances failed to live up to our expectations and he often found himself out of the team during the second-half of the campaign, even when Brendan Rodgers switched to a back three.

His future at the club won’t be helped by the returns of Andre Wisdom and Tiago Ilori from their respective loan deals, as well as the emergence of new signing Joe Gomez. With competition for places in defence likely to be high, the 26-year-old knows that he must rediscover the form he showed on the South Coast sooner rather than later.

Despite the constant accusations that have flown his way over the last twelve months, Lovren remains confident in his own abilities and insists that he’ll come back fighting during our upcoming campaign.

“It has been tough,” he told the Liverpool Echo, when asked about his first year on Merseyside. “I think it was a tough year for everyone at the club and the fans.

“I was quiet last season, I just wanted to concentrate on myself. I knew what was happening with how I was playing was not right and I didn’t want to speak about it. At Southampton it was different. There was a good atmosphere and I was happy. If I am not playing well, I cannot be happy. I didn’t pretend.

“But it is not Dejan Lovren-Liverpool, you know? I cannot defend all alone. It is 11 players. When we are good, everyone is good. When we are bad, everyone is bad, not just me. I think we need to look like this, not just put the pressure on me or point the finger. I don’t agree with this.

“I know what the papers were writing about me. I don’t want to have to listen to this again. We want to move on as a team. When we are better, it is because we will be doing all together good.”